“Fast Fashion” Jewelry Biz BaubleBar Grabs Another $20 Million

E-commerce shop BaubleBar, known for its “fast fashion” take on women’s jewelry, has closed on $20 million in new funding, the company announced today. The Series C round was led by prior investors, Accel Partners, Greycroft Partners, Burch Creative Capital and Aspect Ventures, but also includes new investors who will bring expertise in international expansions and large-scale operations, the company says.

These new investors include strategic partners Hubert Burda Media and DSW.

Co-founded by longtime friends Amy Jain and Daniella Yacobovsky, whose backgrounds were in banking and private equity, BaubleBar is meant to satisfy consumer demand for fashionable jewelry pieces that don’t break the bank.

But more importantly, BaubleBar is focused on reacting to current market trends and then delivering product with a faster turnaround than its traditional competitors.

In the past, Jain said that the company’s compressed supply chain could see jewelry going from the design process to sale in as little as four weeks.

Technology continues to play a large role in BaubleBar’s business, Yacobovsky says.

“We are a highly tech-enabled business, touching everything from our shopping platform, which now includes a mobile app, to our logistics systems,” she tells TechCrunch. “We fulfill and ship all of our orders out of our owned Brooklyn distribution center, so having the right software to manage that is critical. We also rely very heavily on data to ensure we are able to fully benefit from our compressed product lifecycle, and are creating product that meets [consumers’] current demands.”

The company’s primary demographic is the 25- to 40-year old female shopper, who lives in a metro area and is fairly digitally savvy. These women often find items on social media and shop across platforms, including both web and mobile.

In addition to being sold online, BaubleBar has relationships with several retailers including Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, and Anthropologie, all of whom now sell its products in stores. And more recently, the company launched a special line of tech accessories at Target. These include things like decked-out selfie sticks, phone cases, glittery charging cables and earbuds, and gold power packs and speakers, for example.

However, Yacobovsky says that these wholesale relationships today account for less 10 percent of BaubleBar’s overall business. That’s down from the 20 percent reported in 2014 – an indication of the company’s growing e-commerce success.

In addition to offering its jewelry for sale on the site, BaubleBar also offers its customers styling help. Shoppers can chat or email the company for help – even by sending in photos of an outfit, video chat to see the pieces live on a person, and track products on Instagram.

Yacobovsky declined to provide any metrics on customer base, growth or revenue, however. She notes that BaubleBar’s current focus is on expanding its existing retail relationships and growing its direct-to-consumer channels.

With the additional funding, BaubleBar is not doing significant hiring to grow its now 150-person team, but is rather using the new capital to further scale.

“We have historically seen a lot of success investing in both marketing concurrently with software and systems that help us to scale smarter,” says Yacobovsky. “We will be continue to invest in both as part of this next round.”